Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) said “that war is a fairly probable consequence” of peaking and declining world oil supplies. Bartlett spoke to Energy Policy TV about oil supplies as a guest on the EPTV News Roundtable series. Video of the full interview is available at no cost: Bartlett EPTV News Roundtable.

China is buying significant amounts of oil to fuel its economy and meet the needs of its people. But while China is bolstering its oil supply, its leaders are planning for a future without oil, Bartlett said.

China wants to foster international cooperation to deal with constrained oil supplies, Bartlett said. “They recognize that any one country, going it alone, is not going to be able to solve this problem. But while they plead for international cooperation, they wisely plan as if there won’t be any because they are out there buying oil everywhere they can. At the same time they are buying this oil, they are aggressively building a blue-water navy,” he said.

That navy is beyond anything the Chinese would need in a confrontation with Taiwan, Bartlett said. Rather, he said, they are anticipating a day when oil supplies are so constrained that they have to tell the rest of the world, “Gee, I’m sorry, guys, it’s our oil. We have a billion, three-hundred million people and we can no longer share it.”

“It’s a huge security issue,” Bartlett said.

Energy Policy TV hosts substantive video about energy and the environment.Rep. Bartlett frequently discusses peak oil from the House Floor, and his appearance on the EPTV News Roundtable marks the 1,000th video uploaded to the site, which went live last year.Energy Policy TV hosts content from government, industry, NGOs and academia. Energy Policy TV is free and does not require registration or passwords.

Energy Policy TV provides information of record in the form of on-demand video about all sectors of energy and the environment. EPTV uses original sources only and does not interpret or alter comment. Channels include: Oil; Natural Gas; Electricity; Infrastructure & Grid; Coal; Nuclear; Wind; Solar; Biofuels; Green Economy; Efficiency; Conservation; Sustainability; Climate Change; Transportation;Congress;States;Newsmaker;and Roundtables. To query us about hosting your video, click here: http://video.energypolicytv.com/services.html